Hotelier No Longer Welcomed By County Commissioners Set A Vote On Removing Martin Field`s Claim To Prime Property

April 20, 1991|By ERIC CONRAD, Staff Writer

Fourteen months ago, renowned hotelier Martin Field`s dream of building a hotel/office complex on the grounds of Palm Beach International Airport had airport officials almost swooning.

Today, after several financial follies in the West Palm Beach area, Field and his plan are as welcome as a gaggle of geese on the airport`s runway.

County commissioners are scheduled to vote next week on officially removing Field`s claim to a prime piece of land at the southwest corner of Australian Avenue and Belvedere Road.

The land, next to the airport`s main entrance, is still a perfect site for a hotel, airport officials say. But Field is not the developer to pull it off, they wrote this week in a written recommendation to the commission.

``He`s no slouch,`` Bob Inman, properties manager at Palm Beach International, said of Field. ``He did have a lot of problems here. Some of them had to do with the (hotel) market.``

In recent years, Field lost ownership of both the Airport Hilton hotel -- across Australian Avenue from the airport -- and the Palm Hotel in West Palm Beach, airport officials say. The federal government now controls the Hilton.

In February 1990, airport officials were set to recommend that Field be granted exclusive rights to build a hotel on airport grounds. Then, the county learned Field`s Palm Hotel was in trouble and pushed back a decision, Inman said.

Losing the Hilton is what really cost Field the right to build a hotel on airport grounds. Through a complex real-estate arrangement, Field was entitled to build on the airport so long as he owned the Hilton.

Field has said he entered the Palm Beach County hotel market at a bad time economically, and a time when several new hotels opened in the area.

Field, who owns major hotels at John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports in New York City, could not be reached at his office in King of Prussia, Pa., on Friday.

Some day, Palm Beach International officials think, travelers will see a hotel on airport grounds. The move would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the airport through taxes and special fees. It also could entitle airport users to swimming and other privileges enjoyed at some airport hotels.

For now, the land will remain as it is -- grass, shrubs and a man-made pond.

Until a road linking the airport to Interstate 95 is built, no construction can be done in the area. County traffic standards, which restrict how congested certain roads can become, prohibit development near the airport until more roads are built, Inman said.